Show Notes
Patricia and Nicole offer some coming out advice for folks who are queer and haven’t yet shared it (and want to). We share some of our own coming out process and talk about what decisions we made and why. We also talk about what was useful and what things went a little sideways in our coming out process, including some incredibly awkward situations. There is no one right way to come out and so we try to offer a variety of advice for other queer folks.
Mentioned on the show:
- New Patreon Tier!
- Shrubs: An Old-Fashioned Drink for Modern Times by Michael Dietsch
- The Stonewall Reader edited by Jason Baumann & the New York Public Library (or get it on Libro.fm)
- Stand in Pride
- Omnivore Books on Food
Find the full show notes and official transcript on our website: eedapod.com
Become a patron! Patreon.com/eedapod
Follow the show on Instagram & find us on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, & Spotify
Subscribe to the ongoing Enthusiastic Encouragement & Dubious Advice Newsletter
Sound editing by Jen Zink
Transcript
Patricia: Hello there, comrades! Welcome to Enthusiastic Encouragement and Dubious Advice, the podcast for folks who would rather curl into the fetal position than lean in. I’m your host, Patricia Elzie-Tuttle.
Nicole: And I’m here to help shine a little light into that dark closet, Nicole Elzie-Tuttle. We’re recording this show on June 17th, 2024, and it is still Pride.
Patricia: It is still Pride.
Well, and recently, since our last show, we went on our annual cherry picking fruitventure.
Nicole: Fruitventure.
Patricia: Fruitventure.
Nicole: It’s a good portmanteau.
Patricia: As a child, I used to go cherry picking with my family here in the Bay Area. There’s an area that has tons of orchards, and I have very fond memories of sitting on my cousin’s shoulders and picking cherries.
As an adult, this is the fourth year we’ve done this. We get together a small group of friends, and we get up very early, and we drive about an hour from where we are, and we get there early in the morning, we pick cherries for a couple of hours, and then we go to a fruit stand that I love and get the best strawberries that I’m convinced they pick right there, and sometimes they walk in carrying the flats of strawberries and they’re still warm because they just picked them.
Nicole: I will say, even before that, if you’ve never had a fresh, ripe cherry that’s slightly warmed from the sun, right off the tree, like when it’s like really ripe. Ohhhh.
I wish
Patricia: I could bring all of you.
Nicole: It is so good. It is so good. Like, real, fresh, ripe fruit, not fruit that was picked early and is ripened in the basket on the way to the grocery.
Patricia: Well, and that is such a privilege we have here in
Nicole: Yes. Oh, definitely.
Patricia: In California, especially.
Nicole: Yeah. For those that don’t know, California is a major producer of, like, fruit and nuts and veg.
Patricia: Big agriculture state.
Nicole: Huge agriculture state. So we get a lot of really good fresh produce here.
Patricia: So we ate a lot of fruit that day.
And I also, well, together with your help, we processed a lot of fruit. So we hulled and cut strawberries. We pitted cherries.
Nicole: I think it was, what, four pounds of cherries this year?
Patricia: Yeah. That’s actually less than what we usually do.
Nicole: Yeah, that’s less than what we usually get.
Patricia: But I also like to put together shrubs, which I can actually link a cookbook in the show notes.
A shrub is like an old timey way of preserving fruit with sugar and vinegar into like a syrup that you can then use in cocktails or I just like it with fizzy water. So I could still get kind of a, like a slightly vinegary, intense strawberry flavor, like in December cause my shrub lasts about a year, so….
Nicole: Oh, so a shrub is not a guy hanging out the passenger side of his best friend’s ride.
Patricia: No, that’s a scrub.
Nicole: Ah, right, yes.
Patricia: We don’t want any of those.
Nicole: No, we, we don’t want no scrubs.
Patricia: We don’t want no scrubs.
Anyway, we have a Patreon. If this is your first time listening to the show ever, welcome, we have a Patreon.
We have a weekly accountability thread that we have for paid subscribers, where I usually post something that I want to do in the week. It might be make a doctor’s appointment. It might be send some mail and other people post in the comments what they want to do in the week. And we hold each other accountable.
We’re accountabilibuddies. It’s very low pressure and we are planning more paid things for subscribers on Patreon. There’s also a new Patreon level for folks who also subscribe to the Enthusiastic Encouragement and Dubious Advice newsletter. We have a new tier on Patreon that combines the cost of the lower Patreon level and the newsletter and actually you get a discount if you subscribe to this tier.
And all new subscribers get rainbow prism stickers if you want them. There’s a survey to fill out once you sign up for the Patreon. So fill that out and we will send you an amazing little dealie that if you put it on your window in direct sunlight, it will just vomit rainbows all over your room.
Nicole: Perfect for Pride season, and any time of year. Also, we would really appreciate it if anybody who’s listening, who hasn’t left us a rating and a review, we would really appreciate if you could do that. It’s been, oh gosh, at least three months now since we’ve gotten a review on Apple Podcasts. I haven’t seen any new ones in Spotify or on YouTube or any other place, if you’ve left us a review someplace else, please tell us.
We would love to go find it and print it out and put it on our wall because we love hearing from everybody who leaves us a review and it helps other people find us. It’s really important for getting, I don’t know, helping the internets show us to people that should be listening to us.
Patricia: It’s been 84 years.
Nicole: Please, may I have another review?
Patricia: Let’s get into it.
Nicole: Yeah, let’s get into it. But before we do, or I guess, as we do, I would like to make a clarifying note from our last episode. Last episode, we mentioned that the term heterosexual refers mostly to cisgender men and cisgender women being together in a relationship.
We failed to acknowledge that yes, cisgender, transgender, and nonbinary folks in relationships with other cisgender, transgender, and nonbinary folks can also be considered heterosexual relationships. Everyone has the right to self identify and choose the labels that are the best fit for them. And that’s why we use the word mostly to cover this. But we want to be really explicit here because there is still a very pervasive misconception that, in particular, cisgender men who are in relationship with transgender women, or vice versa, are not necessarily heterosexual relationships.
And we want to be clear here that a transgender woman who is straight and in a relationship with a cisgender man, or a cisgender woman who is straight in a relationship with a straight transgender man, are both heterosexual relationships. And the reason we want to bring this up is because this
Patricia: Misconception.
Nicole: Yes. This misconception.
Patricia: That this is somehow gay, and using that term as a pejorative is what leads to violence and sometimes fatality, especially for trans women.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: Because the idea that this somehow pushes back on masculinity,
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: or the masculinity of the man partner in the relationship, especially if it is with a trans woman, is directly related to fatalities and murders of trans women.
And we want to be really explicit here. That it is not inherently homosexual or queer to be in a relationship with a trans person.
Nicole: Or even find trans people attractive.
Patricia: Right, and it returns to what we said, everyone has the right to self identify, too. If you are straight, then you are straight. And the boundaries of orientation are very fuzzy.
And they’re more fuzzy than certain people would like you to believe. And so that’s why we really wanted to be explicit. We used the term mostly to kind of cover all of this. And we realized we were doing us a disservice and we were doing you as a listener a disservice. So that’s why we want to be explicit.
Nicole: Thank you for helping there.
Patricia: Yeah, no problem. I got you.
Music: [Transitional Music]
Patricia: So, last episode was mostly focused toward folks who are not part of the queer community, and this week we want to offer some tips to the newer folks to our community, mostly around coming out.
Nicole: Now, we recognize that there is no single right or correct way to come out and to be able to come out safely and supported and on your own time can often involve certain levels or a lot of privilege.
Patricia: Absolutely.
I also want to put this out here right up front, if you are queer and not out yet, you don’t have to come out unless you’re ready and feel safe enough to do so.
Nicole: And there are many, many reasons why people may not be ready to come out. One of the biggest ones is fear of not being accepted, but there’s other very legitimate fears that people have.
And this includes things like losing a job or housing, because there are still 16 states with no explicit state level laws preventing discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. But also there’s fear of losing family or community or other important relationships, and importantly, fear of personal safety.
It can also be really tricky to come out if you are still a dependent of some sort, and whether that is someone who is a dependent adult, or someone who is not yet of adult age. But also if you live in someone else’s home and are dependent on them for housing. Or maybe a parent or guardian’s health insurance.
There’s so many reasons why someone may not want to come out.
Patricia: Only you can decide when it is the right time to come out for you, and I recognize that we are often in our queer bubble of friends and loved ones, and even the marginally more safe area of the San Francisco Bay Area. And we take for granted how easy it is for us to be open in certain ways and among certain people. How we can walk around and see other queer people. Which is not something that everyone has the privilege of doing where they are, that they know of anyway.
And it is not for us in more quote unquote liberal areas to judge the decisions someone makes around their own coming out, but it is our job to offer support and a safe space.
Nicole: It is also not necessary to know other queer people in order to be queer and to come out. The reverse of this is also true. It is not contagious.
Both: [Laughing]
Nicole: You are not more likely to suddenly be queer if you know other queer people, but you may feel more comfortable or safe if you are. And that’s where it can help. If you don’t have someone in your life who is supportive or you know will be supportive, this is where it has helped to know other queer people.
Patricia: And yeah, again, it’s also about access. This may mean meeting other queer people online, it may be a Discord, it may be some other kind of online group because you may not have access to that in person. And like for us personally, we definitely started with a foundational list of close friends who we know would support us coming out.
And I want to acknowledge that this is not the reality for many, many people. And we recommend that you do what you can to start cultivating this, but I also remember there are also so many social barriers around this, and I think a lot about people who are men or seen as men and don’t necessarily have close friends or people who don’t, anyone who doesn’t have close friends, because they don’t want people to know the real them, right?
There’s a lot of complexities around community building and that can make it even harder for people to come out.
Nicole: Yeah, I will acknowledge that it is really hard to let people get close to you if you’re really afraid of them finding out that you’re queer. I will acknowledge this from a first hand experience.
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: I know for myself, like, I didn’t have any trans role models growing up. My biggest exposure to other trans people was, like, daytime talk show. What was it? Like, Sally Jessy Raphael and Ricki Lake. I didn’t watch
Patricia: Jerry Springer.
Nicole: Jerry Springer. I didn’t watch Jerry
Patricia: Yeah
Nicole: Springer. It was too fighty. And it was all sensational, and it was over the top, and I couldn’t see myself in those people.
The only other trans people I ever saw may have been like, you know, sex workers or something. And that was all I knew, and I couldn’t see myself in that, and also, I didn’t want to be that. Right?
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: I didn’t want to be that over the top, messy person I saw on daytime talk show TV, like….
Patricia: Well, yeah, and, I mean we know plenty of these over the top messy people, and we love you.
Nicole: Absolutely.
Patricia: I think the word I’m thinking of is spectacle. You know…
Nicole: Yeah, those shows are designed to be a spectacle.
Patricia: But also making a spectacle of individuals.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: And it wasn’t modeled to you that being trans is a healthy, normal, functional way to be, and you can just have a job, and you can have a spouse, and
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: Well, and also a lot of the general concept around it was that at that time there was still something very, very wrong with you. And that was hard to deal with as well. So when I finally started having this discussion,
Patricia: I asked you, I said, do you know any other trans people? Because we were down in Southern California
Nicole: Yeah
Patricia: and I have trans friends, but they were up here in the Bay Area.
Nicole: Right.
Patricia: And
Nicole: I was like, no. I don’t know anybody. I’m figuring this out on myself. That’s why it’s taking so long. [Laughing] But you, you told me, you recommended to me that I go to a peer group and that’s what I did. I started going once a week to a peer group and just started meeting some other people who were often also early in their transition, but it was really helpful, and I made a few friends down there through that group.
It was really helpful.
Patricia: I’m glad. And I’m sure it was scary, too. I want to make it clear, this whole coming out process, uh, it could be very scary and very anxiety inducing, and I don’t want to minimize that at all.
Nicole: Yeah, well, and especially, like, I would show up to this, like, still in my, like, boy work drag. Like,
Patricia: Right
Nicole: I was still just like, with kind of a short haircut, buttoned down shirt, slacks, like,
Patricia: Yep
Nicole: was so fresh. I had, like, nothing was visible yet.
Patricia: Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
Nicole: And so that was really hard to sit down in a peer group and be like, hi, I use she/her pronouns? Like, I had to get comfortable with being uncomfortable
Patricia: Right
Nicole: with a lot of this.
Patricia: Now, when coming out, one of the things you think about is like the order in which you tell people, and some folks might say that if you If you have a partner, if you’re already in a committed relationship and they do not know you’re queer, that you should tell them first. And I’m going to push back on that a little bit because I really think it depends on the situation.
Like, yes, maybe you feel obligated to tell that person first, but you know your partner. If there’s a chance that they’re not going to handle this information maturely, if there is the chance that they might not be in cahoots, which may often be the case, if you have a close friend, either in person, online, doesn’t matter, who you know would be supportive, you might want to tell the supportive person or people first. Especially if you, say, live with your partner or spouse or something like that and you might need a different place to land. Try to find someone supportive first. Again, it might even just be an online friend to check in with.
Nicole: Yeah, I probably should have done that.
Both: [Laughing]
Patricia: Nope, you just cried and you’re like, what if?
[Laughing]
Nicole: Yeah, I wasn’t very good at this then.
Patricia: But also, like, I was in cahoots and you were pretty sure.
Nicole: I was pretty sure, but I gave you the opportunity to, to nope out.
Patricia: Yeah, which is wild. Absolutely. You’re not getting rid of me, ever.
Nicole: [Laughing] Thankfully.
Patricia: Even if you tried, I know how to find you. Like, that’s my job. [Laughing]
Nicole: And it’s not due to like, you know, having tracking on my phone and stuff?
Patricia: No.
Both: [Laughing]
Nicole: Oh, look, you’re on the freeway again.
Both: [Laughing]
Nicole: So, we did a lot of strategizing early on, which, again, was a privilege, and we told all of our very most supportive people first, and that way we were able to set up check-ins or hanging out or having people on call when we knew we were going to have more difficult conversations.
So we had people we could pull on saying like, hey, I’m going to tell this person that I’m like really nervous about, can we hang out after and just have a good time? Or something to, to balance that and, and have someone to land with having kind of a little bit of an emotional safety net.
Patricia: So there are, of course, so many different ways that you can come out to people and communicate coming out in person, over the phone, snail mail, writing letters, email, video, social media, gender reveal party. And there is no one right way. Even if people try to tell you like, no, you have to come out to people in person. If a person is going to be a jerk about how the message was delivered, then it’s likely they were going to be a jerk no matter what you did. So you need to choose what feels safest for you.
Nicole: And when it came to like, when I and we came out and I, I will clarify it was kind of a we situation because while I was coming out saying like, surprise, I’m Nicole now. It also changed our relationship dynamic.
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: And how we were going to be seen. So it was kind of a dual coming out. Uh…
Patricia: The ol’ one two.
Nicole: But we strategized with these various options in that we told some of our very closest people that we could in person, in person, and created kind of our first layer safety net of our, our biggest supporters. Then we kind of reached out over the phone to some other supporters who maybe weren’t as close.
Patricia: Yeah, they weren’t local,
Nicole: Weren’t local, Yeah.
Patricia: So we needed to do phone calls.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: Yeah.
And then I took a different tack a little bit in that I drafted up a letter and, like, wrote it on really nice paper and had really pretty envelopes and stuff, and I mailed A letter out to a lot of my close family and people that I was really nervous about. I wasn’t sure how they were going to handle it, whether or not they would still be around afterwards.
And so I mailed a letter off with tracking. And one of the things we learned from this is people don’t check their mail.
Patricia: Yeah, go back, go back to our, what was it, All Hail Snail Mail
Nicole: Oh my gosh.
Patricia: Uh, episode. But yeah, people don’t check their mail.
Nicole: And so it was kind of a little bit of a catch 22 on that one, where I could see from the tracking that it was delivered, and I didn’t know if they just hadn’t, like, checked their mail, Or if they had read it and we’re deliberately not responding to me.
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: And it was a real kind of gray zone time.
Patricia: Yeah, real anxiety inducing.
Nicole: But I just kind of let that sit there. And we waited a couple weeks and we recorded a video where we kind of told everyone what was going on and scheduled it. Made it kind of a private video, right?
Patricia: It was a private, it was a private video. We shared it back when we were on Facebook, like,
Nicole: yeah
Patricia: and, but it was a private link.
Nicole: So it only, it wasn’t just like released into the public wilds of the internet.
Patricia: Oh my god, no.
Nicole: But we like chose a day and we posted on the internet and immediately logged out of all our social media accounts and went out to dinner with some of our safety net friends.
Patricia: Absolutely.
Nicole: We went to a really cool restaurant in L. A.
Patricia: Yeah, yeah. And we were like, we’re not going on the internet for like, 24 hours.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: Yeah, that’s…
Nicole: That’s kind of what we did.
Patricia: That’s kind of what we did. And be prepared for some surprises. There are people that will surprise you, you might not expect them to, again, I love this phrase, you might not expect them to be in cahoots, and they will show up fully.
And then there’s also, like, especially if you make kind of a more public announcement, be ready for some people you never talk to, to come creeping out from under their rocks to tell you how you’re making a bad decision or something like that. So again, be ready for surprises, good ones, bad ones, weird ones.
Nicole: Yeah.
And I think some of the reactions come from the fact that, like, people will do, like, a knee jerk reaction and don’t realize that this is something you’ve been probably thinking about and, like, working through for a very long time. This is the first time they’re hearing about it, so they think you’re just doing a thing.
Patricia: [Laughing]
Nicole: And I think that’s important to recognize for some people. They don’t realize that you’ve been working over this for so long. But you need to keep in mind that it is a privilege for people to have you come out to them and show them your authentic self. If they can’t understand that, or struggle with it in some way, that’s on them. That’s a them thing.
You’re giving them an opportunity to see and meet and love the real you, and continue that relationship they have with you. If they can’t deal with that, again, that’s a them problem. That’s not a you problem.
Patricia: Yeah, I think one of people’s many fears of coming out is sometimes people think it’s something they’re doing to someone else, like oh, I’m going to ruin someone’s life, or I’m going to ruin this relationship, and no, you’re actually giving them a gift to be in relationship with the authentic, real you.
Nicole: And if they can’t handle being friends, family, coworkers, whatever, with a queer person, with a trans person, again, that’s a them problem.
Patricia: Yeah.
And not that it doesn’t hurt.
Both: Not that it doesn’t hurt.
Patricia: And not that it’s not hard, but it is not your fault.
Nicole: It’s not your fault. And that doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you.
Patricia: So, we also recognize we were in a really unique position, not only coming out together, but also well into adulthood. We were well resourced in that we had jobs where it was safe-ish to do so.
Nicole: My job even had pre established procedures for how to handle someone coming out and transitioning.
Patricia: That’s right.
Where you were working in LA,
Nicole: Yeah
Patricia: they had that. And we also had a significant supportive circle. And also, I used to be a sex educator, so it was really helpful in explaining concepts to folks who we were willing to educate.
Nicole: Yeah, it was really helpful.
So, it’s important to know, though, that you don’t have to have it all figured out, even if and when you are coming out.
It’s okay to take time, and maybe you just let a few people know that you’re figuring stuff out, and hopefully they’ll be supportive. We know some folks feel very strongly about the born this way narrative. They are very, you know, that is, that is the way it is. But for other people, orientation and gender can change over time. And that’s okay too.
You don’t have to be born this way.
Patricia: Yeah
Nicole: Both of them are valid. And also, recognize that it might not be a one and done. For a lot of people, it’s a journey. And you may find that as your gender changes or evolves, your orientation may change. And for other people, as they learn more about their orientation and the kinds of people they’re attracted to, they might find that their gender changes, and this is okay.
Patricia: And as we mentioned during the last show, labels can be incredibly helpful in finding resources and finding community. However, they could also be a disservice if you don’t find yourself fitting into a particular box. That is the nature of language. Language has its limitations, especially English.
I could go on to say this is why humans also have art and music, but there’s not a checkbox for me when I say my gender is best described as the theme from the Benny Hill show. And so language fails. And that’s maybe what the plus is in that 2SLGBTQIA+, right? You don’t necessarily always have to fit into a box or a label.
Nicole: Yeah, and as we mentioned before, the boundaries of those boxes and labels can be incredibly, as we said, wibbly wobbly. They are not distinct. Again, there’s no rules saying you have to have it all figured out. There’s currently kind of an obsession with knowing your exact place in the 2SLGBTQIA+, like, taxonomy, and this can be really anxiety inducing for some folks.
Take your time, give yourself space, try things out, see what works, what doesn’t, what fits, what doesn’t, it’s okay.
Patricia: And also, if you find comfort in being able to firmly fit in a box and fit in a space, that is valid too. I don’t want to make it seem like no one has to fit in any boxes. Like, again, right to self identify, and if that’s where you’re feeling comfortable, then great, and if you don’t feel comfortable in those spaces, and you make up your own space, that’s valid, too.
Nicole: Absolutely.
Patricia: I also want to put out there, we’re nearing the end of the show-ish, or at least this section of it, and I want to put this out there. You don’t have to answer all or any questions about your sex, gender, orientation. This is also a phrase I like to say when talking about boundaries. We haven’t necessarily had a show about boundaries yet, but you don’t have to justify yourself or your position or your identity.
Not all questions deserve a response. You can simply say, that’s a weird question to ask someone. Or, if you’re willing to leave it open, why do you want to know that? Or simply, I’m not answering that. I’m not answering that is a legitimate answer to a question.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: And sometimes, we were talking about this a little before we were recording, is yeah, some people are just nosy, or they are asking questions for nefarious reasons.
And some people are curious. Some people are ignorant, because they don’t actually know that you shouldn’t be asking those questions. And you reminded me of one of my own favorite phrases, just because it’s a teaching moment for you doesn’t mean it’s a learning moment for them. So you may be willing to give information, but they’re not asking from a place of curiosity and wanting to learn.
Nicole: Yeah, that’s, I think, something that’s really important to recognize as you start coming out. Not everyone’s in a place to learn, and you are gonna have to kind Learn to see that. You probably also caught that I said as you start coming out because this unfortunately is not a one and done process. It is likely something you’re gonna do over and over and over again for the rest of time.
Patricia: Yeah, it’s not all always going to be planned if there’s a family reunion, if there’s a wedding, and there’s people you haven’t seen in a long time.
Nicole: You may have to come out in some really unexpected times and places. I had to at a funeral recently with a family member who evidently I hadn’t seen since I was
Patricia: A child.
Nicole: A child child. And they were like, wasn’t there a little dead name in the family? What happened to him? As they’re sitting across the table, looking at me, asking about
Patricia: Asking you that question!
Nicole: Asking me, as though maybe that was my brother or something. And I kindly had to explain to my, what, second cousin twice removed or something, Yeah, that’s me.
Hi.
Patricia: [Laughing] So awkward.
Nicole: Luckily they took it really well.
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: But recognize that it can sometimes happen unexpectedly.
Patricia: So we have a couple takeaways, as always. I think mine are that, like last time, I want to note here that you are a beloved part of the community. If you’re queer and not out yet, you’re still valid.
And even the best laid plans might go sideways. And one more thing, it could be awkward and scary, and it will be awkward and scary, and also there’s a huge community out here who supports you.
Nicole: I want to add that you don’t have to have it all figured out. You don’t have to know your exact labels. If you do, that’s fantastic, but you don’t have to, and that’s great, too.
You don’t even have to be sure. It’s okay to play and experiment and learn about yourself. In fact, I encourage it. If you think you’re straight, and you haven’t really thought about why, or anything else like that, like, think about it. Really work through that. Same with your gender. If you’re cis, give yourself the opportunity to explore that. No matter the outcome, you will be better off for it. And if you want to engage in allyship, having that knowledge and experience will make you better at it.
Music: [Transition Music]
Patricia: So for today’s resource, Nicole actually has a couple resources.
Nicole: Yeah. So I recently read a book that is kind of relevant to our last episode. It is the Stonewall Reader edited by the New York Public Library and Jason Baumann. And this is a collection of accounts and diaries and periodic literature and interviews and articles from LGBTQ magazines and newspapers that documented the years leading up to, during, and following the Stonewall uprising, and this was all collected by the New York Public Library as part of the 50th anniversary of Stonewall in 2019.
And what’s great about it is it is all first hand voices. So, from the era before Stonewall, you’ll get pieces from Audre Lorde and Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon. From the time period during Stonewall, you’ll hear from Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera and Holly Woodlawn and Miss Major Griffin-Gracy. And then after, you’ll hear from Harry Hay and Reverend Troy D. Perry, and again, Marsha P. Johnson. And because of this, I highly recommend actually getting the audiobook for this one, because some of these are read by the author if they’re still alive and able to record. Some of them are interviews, and they play the original interview audio recording. It’s just an amazing encapsulation of the history for this period and, again, why we have and continue to need Pride.
Patricia: Again, the title was The Stonewall Reader, edited by New York Public Library and Jason Baumann, and we will link it in the show notes.
Nicole: The other resource, you get two from me today, is a group that has recently sprung up called Stand in Pride. What Stand in Pride is, is a group of people. And it’s, it’s not just queer people, not just two spirit LGBTQIA+ people. It is also people who want to and do engage in allyship with the queer community. And it’s a group that offers to be stand in family for people who need it after coming out. The group was originally formed for things like weddings. What if you’ve come out, you’re marrying your partner, and your father, say, has rejected you, and you need someone to walk you down the aisle? You can reach out to this group, and there will be probably dozens if not hundreds of fathers who would love to walk you down the aisle.
Currently, this group is primarily on Facebook, and it’s actually broken up into regional groups for the U. S., so you would have to find, like, go search on Facebook for Stand in Pride, and there are regional groups, like I said. So you’ll find Stand in Pride West, Stand in Pride Northeast, Stand in Pride Southeast, Stand in Pride Midwest, whatever your region is, there is, at least within the U. S., a group for that. I think there is also an international group, and I think they are spreading globally, and I know the creator is also working on an app. To better connect people and get it out of Facebook.
Patricia: Nice.
Nicole: Patricia?
Patricia: Yes, Nicole?
Nicole: What’s filling your cup right now?
Patricia: We recently went to an amazing bookstore.
I mean, I think all bookstores are wonderful, hashtag yes, all bookstores, but I actually had seen on Instagram, someone made a reel of like, this bookstore in San Francisco, and it is called Omnivore Books on Food, and it is a culinary bookstore. And apparently there are only 10 or 11 culinary bookstores in the US, and we’re lucky enough to have one in San Francisco.
It is an intimate space. It’s not very large. They had, like, such a phenomenal range of cookbooks. And yeah, they may have had only one of each book on the shelf for a lot of, a lot of the older books, but they also had some used books or like some vintage cookbooks as well. And not only cookbooks, but just like, books on food writing, and they would often have authors come through and author talks.
And so a lot of signed cookbooks were in there as well. And the people who were at the bookstore who run the bookstore are so deeply knowledgeable. Like I just, I just wanted to download their brains into my brain.
Nicole: I was just fascinated by the range they had. It wasn’t like you said, just new books, and it wasn’t even just modern era books. There were these, like, vintage French cookbooks on, like, using cacao.
Patricia: Yeah, there was one…
Nicole: And it would be, like, two inches thick.
Patricia: Yeah, there was one book I saw that it was, like, festival foods, but it was from the 60s, and it was, like, festival foods from across the US. Like, it was, I wanted to buy more than I did, still bought, you know, a lot, but Omnivor Books on Food is just bringing me a lot of joy right now.
Hey, Nicole, what’s filling your cup?
Nicole: What’s filling my cup is all of you. Listeners and everyone else who stood by us, stood with us, has come to stand with us and be our friends and love us after we came out. It was really scary for me. And for everyone who even got on board a little later, took some time to work through it.
You fill my cup too. Thank you so much. All of you.
Patricia: Yeah. We love you all.
Well, that’s our show for today. We’d like to thank our awesome audio editor, Jen Zink. You can find her at loopdilou.com and we’ll leave a link to that in our show notes.
Nicole: You can find the full show notes and transcript at eedapod.com, that’s E E D A P O D dot com.
There you can also find a link to our Patreon, our Bookshop link, and a link to the ongoing Enthusiastic Encouragement and Dubious Advice newsletter. You can also find us on Instagram and Bluesky at eedapod. And you can email us at eedapod@gmail.com.
Patricia: We are nothing if not consistent.
Nicole: And we would appreciate it so much if you would subscribe and rate us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts that allow ratings.
It really does go far in helping other people find us. And like we said, it’s been so long since we’ve heard from you.
Patricia: Gonna start playing the Sarah McLachlan song. We would also appreciate anyone who can subscribe to us on Patreon. Support is going to help us keep this show going, especially without ads.
You can find us at patreon.com/eedapod. In the meantime, we hope you find ways to be kind to yourself. Drink some water and read a book. We’ll be talking to you soon.
Nicole: I choked myself up there at the end,
Patricia: Yeah, I know.
Nicole: thanking everybody.
Patricia: I could see the tears in your eyes, sweetie.
Nicole: [Sigh] It’s happy tears.